Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $9.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Raising Ricky
    Raising Ricky
    Raising Ricky
    Ebook72 pages1 hour

    Raising Ricky

    By Elizabeth Mentzer

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    This is my story of an interracial adoption back in the early seventies. Ricky is a high- spirited, stubborn, loving, eighteen-month-old boy. He grows up the youngest of five older sisters. There were challenges, but we all survived.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPage Publishing, Inc.
    Release dateAug 27, 2023
    ISBN9798887938653
    Raising Ricky

    Related to Raising Ricky

    Related ebooks

    Relationships For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Two Fathers

      Jun 18, 2022

      Two Fathers
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Vision of Little Shell

      Aug 1, 2024

      The Vision of Little Shell
      16 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Nonfiction No. 11

      Dec 7, 2021

      The Art of Nonfiction No. 11
      26 min read

    • Article

      It All Begins in Love

      Dec 1, 2023

      It All Begins in Love
      9 min read

    • Article

      My Countryside Childhood

      May 24, 2022

      My Countryside Childhood
      4 min read

    • Article

      Perfect Casting

      Jul 11, 2019

      Perfect Casting
      5 min read

    • Article

      Lzzy Hale

      Oct 13, 2022

      Lzzy Hale
      9 min read

    • Article

      Pride Of Peckham

      Nov 4, 2021

      Pride Of Peckham
      7 min read

    • Article

      Everyday People Were Civil Rights Heroes, Too. This Is The Story Of One Town's Fight

      Oct 23, 2022

      In 1970, the murder of a Black man in Oxford, N.C., led ordinary people to take extraordinary action. In a country that still struggles with race, stories like theirs show that the past is not dead.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Why Do They Hate Us? Lehane’s Latest Novel Helped Me Answer That.

      Sep 27, 2023

      I integrated every school I attended until I went off to college. We were a strongly Catholic family. My father would go on to become a deacon in the church, and so it followed that the schools my parents chose were Catholic. I am Black. The friends

      4 min read

    • Article

      Brought Together

      Jul 30, 2021

      Brought Together
      7 min read

    • Article

      Nora And The Jews

      Apr 20, 2023

      Nora Ephron was Jewish but glamorous. Jewish and glamorous. Glamorous, in part, because she was Jewish. The post Nora and the Jews appeared first on The Millions.

      18 min read

    • Article

      My countryside CHILDHOOD

      Feb 3, 2022

      My countryside CHILDHOOD
      3 min read

    • Article

      Brought Together

      Apr 30, 2024

      Brought Together
      7 min read

    • Article

      The New Southern Gothic

      Aug 18, 2022

      The New Southern Gothic
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Risk That Worked: Talking About Race Head-on With Neighbors

      Sep 27, 2021

      When three neighbors – two white and one Black – talk about race, they learn the benefits of seeking, not to be understood, but to understand.

      4 min read

    • Article

      ‘We Are Bridges’: Featured Nonfiction from Cassandra Lane

      Apr 20, 2021

      Lane's memoir, which won the 2020 Louise Meriwether First Book Prize, explores the author's ancestral history in order to give her future child a family history. The post ‘We Are Bridges’: Featured Nonfiction from Cassandra Lane appeared first on The

      8 min read

    • Article

      The Great Escape

      Aug 8, 2024

      The Great Escape
      5 min read

    • Article

      Family Man

      Apr 15, 2020

      Family Man
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Son I Never Knew

      May 24, 2019

      The Son I Never Knew
      7 min read

    • Article

      I Was A Bad Lesbian

      Dec 23, 2022

      I’ve always been a bad lesbian.To be fair, I missed orientation. Athletic lesbians got inducted in high school. They didn’t think to collect the femmes in drama club, so I got left behind. It wasn’t until I saw a handsome black and white photo of k.d

      3 min read

    • Article

      Good Old Fashioned Guy

      Oct 1, 2024

      Good Old Fashioned Guy
      5 min read

    • Article

      Growing Up Sansei in LA

      Jun 23, 2020

      Growing Up Sansei in LA
      9 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Raising Ricky

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Raising Ricky - Elizabeth Mentzer

      cover.jpg

      Raising Ricky

      Elizabeth Mentzer

      Copyright © 2023 Elizabeth Mentzer

      All rights reserved

      First Edition

      PAGE PUBLISHING

      Conneaut Lake, PA

      First originally published by Page Publishing 2023

      ISBN 979-8-88793-864-6 (pbk)

      ISBN 979-8-88793-865-3 (digital)

      Printed in the United States of America

      Table of Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      As I sit down to write about this experience, I am torn between what were the real challenges. Between adoption, race, and what would probably be diagnosed today as ADHD, it has been quite a journey.

      It all began in the era of mass protest over the Vietnam War, the civil rights struggle, and the hippie generation’s grudge against the establishment. It is a time that is hard to know what to think of where you and your family fit in a world of turmoil. It was 1970, and we were a family of seven: husband Bob, wife Ann, and five daughters: Mary age thirteen, Susan age eleven, Kathy age nine, Trudy age five, and Karen age two.

      Where We Stand on the War

      Bob and I had a problem with the generation gap in our marriage. The Vietnam War is a major difference. I am seven years younger than Bob, and I say that if I had a son old enough to be drafted, I would send him to Canada. The war was wrong, we had no business there, let the Vietnamese settle their own problems, etc. On the other hand, Bob is a Korean veteran and feels that if your country calls, you go. I walked to high school many mornings and watched the sky light up from the atomic bomb test in Nevada. I had a serious fear of the big bomb for years and wanted no part in the war.

      Where We Stand on the Civil Rights Movement

      Bob and I were both very much for equality among the races. Bob and I were born on opposite sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, and the environments in which we were raised was very different, especially as it pertains to race.

      There is no way to candy-coat the environment in which I was raised. My early life was in the Missouri cotton fields of the segregated south. My father was a farmer and part-time minister for a church in the boot-heel of Missouri, near Memphis, Tennessee. As a farmer, my father often hired black workers to help work the fields. I do not think my parents thought of the black workers as equals, but they were treated fairly. Most other white farmers would pay the black workers less than their white counterparts. My dad paid the same for a pound of cotton, no matter who picked it. I was raised in a time, and in an environment where the common term for black people was, nigger. As a young child, I did not know this word to be a put-down, but simply a term used to refer to a person who was black. My parents used this word, and I am sure that I also said it. I had many other relatives who referred to their help as our niggers and they treated them as if they were still slaves. I remember being a very young child and listening as the members of our church would debate as to whether or not black people had souls. Even as a small child, this seemed absurd. Growing up, I feel that my parents set a good example for my sister and I, because I can not recall ever hearing my parents make negative remarks about black people, with the exception of their common use of the word, Nigger when we lived on the farm.

      I recall a day when I was about five years old. It was a cold October day, perfect for butchering hogs. Smoked pork and chicken were the only meats available for a poor share-cropping family. My mother was ill, and my dad needed help to get the meat butchered, cured, and the fat rendered. There was a crew of black workers from town in the next field pulling bolls. This was the last picking for the season, and was cold, dirty work. My dad went over to make a deal to get a couple of the men to help by offering to share part of the meat. These were poor times for every one; and when the negotiations were complete, the entire field of workers, including women and children, came to help. My dad felt bad stealing his neighbor’s workers, but it resulted in a full day of picnicking and fun at our house. These workers were living in severe poverty, and this day turned out to be good for everyone because they would have meat to take home at the end of the day. This was the first time that I had really played with black children, and although I recall having a lot of fun playing with the children, I remember my mother worrying that because they were poor, I might catch lice.

      When I was about ten years old, my father became a full-time minister in Campbell, Missouri. Campbell was located just south of the Mason-Dixon line. Jim Crow laws made it legal for people to warn black people that they were not welcomed members of the community. I remember driving to church in Campbell and passing a sign that said, Black man, do not let the sun set on your head in this town. I heard my dad express

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1